According to Sporting News Pro Football 2009 Preview magazine, the New York Giants will win the Super Bowl.

Yes, it is only July, but that’s what they predict. They also predict the Giants to finish 12-4 and first in the division. Sporting News predicts they’ll beat Philadelphia, Atlanta, and New England, in that order, to win another trophy.

Not so fast. It is only July, and I don’t buy it. The following is my reaction to each of their seven reasons on why the Giants will win it all again in 2009.

1) Championship Pedigree: The Giants have been there, done that. Many key players already own Super Bowl 42 rings. They still have the swagger of champions. Last season made them even hungrier.

Until Plaxico Burress’ gun incident derailed them, the Giants looked ready to repeat. They feel cheated, as if their season went up in smoke when a gun went off in a nightclub. Burress is now gone and will not stand in their way. Nothing will.

Let’s face it, the Giants aren’t the only team to have a Lombardi Trophy, and the players, coaches and owners aren’t unique in the fact they have rings. The Steelers won’t like this reasoning. The Patriots won’t. Plenty of guys who have moved on from Super Bowl teams won’t like this reason.

That was 2007. This is 2009. Things change fast in the NFL. So the Giants have won a Super Bowl. So what?

2) Depth: This team is well equipped to handle injuries. Significant players have gone down over the past two seasons – Jeremy Shockey, Mathias Kiwanuka, Osi Umenyiora. Yet the Giants kept winning.

General Manager Jerry Reese has assembled a formidable roster. The Giants are toast if Eli Manning goes down for the long term. But overall their roster is rock-solid.

The Giants do have very good depth. But a lot of players on IR won’t help the Giants. The Giants do have question marks on their roster. Who’s the top receiver? Who is behind Kevin Boss at the tight end position? Who are the backup guards and center? What’s the outside linebacker situation?

The Giants are a solid team, depth wise. But they still have question marks. A few injuries and rookies will be starting in key positions. And let’s not forget, if the backups get hurt too, what good is depth? Backups play special teams too, and if they get hurt while covering a kickoff or on punt coverage, it hurts the team all around.

3) Offensive Line: Guard Chris Snee and Center Shaun O’Hara are coming off Pro Bowl seasons. David Diehl and Kareem McKenzie are excellent tackles, and Rich Seubert is a dependable guard. The Giants led the league in rushing last season, as their backs were provided with gaping holes.

Few backs run with Brandon Jacobs’ power and Ahmad Bradshaw’s game-breaking speed. Derrick Ward, who signed with the Buccaneers, will miss the Giants offensive line more than the Giants will miss him.

This one I mostly agree with, but I’m not buying everything. As I mentioned above, the Giants have some depth questions in some areas of the offensive line. If those guards go down, who replaces them? The right tackle position should be solid, but the roster doesn’t have a very good backup right tackle.

I agree with that running back situation is good for the Giants, but Ahmad Bradshaw needs to step up this year. If he doesn’t, the Giants will have to rely on a rookie running back in Andre Brown to get the job done for half the snaps.

And since Brandon Jacobs will undoubtedly miss some time, they’ll miss Derrick Ward at times. The running back situation, on paper, looks good. If the running game isn’t the cornerstone of the offense, the Giants might struggle.

4) Ferocious pass rush: Justin Tuck became a star last season after Umenyiora suffered a season-ending injury. Together, they will make sandwiches out of quarterbacks, while Mathias Kiwanuka will rarely see double teams, making him even more effective.

The Giants will miss defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, now head coach of the Rams. But the franchise was smart to promote former linebackers coach Bill Sheridan to defensive coordinator.

Sheridan sat in meetings with Spagnuolo, and knows best how to deploy personnel. Remember Super Bowl XLII, when Patriots quarterback Tom Brady spent much of the game on his back? The Giants have the personnel to do that again.

This I mostly agree with, but Bill Sheridan is the question mark here. So he sat in some meetings, big deal. He’s still unproven as a defensive coordinator. His players have the talent, but what Spagnuolo did so well was put the players in great situations to succeed. Can Sheridan do that?

Yes, the Giants abused Tom Brady in Super Bowl XLII. That was also the best game plan Spagnuolo had all year. Can Sheridan repeat that?

5) Tom Coughlin: The longer he coaches, the more the Giants reflect his tenacity. One of Coughlin’s heroes is former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. After the league meetings in March, Coughlin drove up the California coast to meet Wooden for the first time, and they talked for three hours.

Like Wooden, Coughlin never thinks he knows it all. Late in his career, Coughlin had evolved into a players’ coach, without being too lenient. Hiring young head coaches has become trendy, but the league’s oldest head coach (Coughlin will be 63 in August) is still one of the best.

Throughout his career with the Giants, Coughlin’s team will either look great or terrible. Sometimes, the game plan the Giants implement is downright awful. He has gotten a lot better with players.

In the loaded NFC East, one loss might cost the Giants the division. And every New York fan should know Coughlin messes up at least one game every season.

6) Eli Manning: It seems like this guy has been around for a decade, but he’s only 28. Manning has his supporters and his critics, but has yet to reach his prime. He already wears a ring, and often plays his best in clutch situations.

Quarterback is the most important position in team sports. In the fourth quarter, the Giants have a quarterback who makes plays.

Everything about Manning listed is true. The question is whether or not his receiving corps help him out. The wide receivers are young and don’t have a whole lot of experience.

Steve Smith should be his safety blanket, but the Giants don’t have a big-play receiver yet (maybe they do, but no one who has shown he can be that guy). If his receivers struggle, what Manning will we see—the leader in Manning or the guy who shrugs off mistakes?

7) Special teams: The punter (Jeff Feagles) is superb at pinning teams inside the 20. The placekicker (Lawrence Tynes) is reliable. The kick-coverage units are excellent. The Giants usually win the battle of field position and rarely waste scoring drives.

Kick-coverage is excellent? Downright lie. The Giants struggled covering kicks all year. Opponents had great field position a lot, including in the playoffs. Feagles is rock solid, Tynes is not. He’s a good kicker, but he’ll miss a few kicks from time to time, and sometimes they are kicks he should make.

Giants have a good offense, but they sometimes do waste drives by stalling in the red zone. Last year, we often saw the Giants sputter inside the 20 and had to kick a field goal.

In the playoffs, that hurt them. If the Giants can score touchdowns, they’ll be a great team. If they have to resort to field goals, they’ll be in a lot of close games, sometimes on the losing end.

On paper, the Giants do look like a Super Bowl-caliber team. But when the pads go on, everything changes. If the Giants can get it all together, they’ll be a great team. If not, they’ll struggle.

Let’s wait before we crown them. There’s still 16 games to play.

(Article originally posted on http://nygiants247.blogspot.com/)